St Helens councillor hopes her story will empower victims of domestic abuse

Since taking over St Helens Council’s community safety portfolio in May, Cllr Jeanie Bell has been increasingly vocal regarding domestic abuse.

The Newton councillor raised eyebrows back in June when she pushed back a planned domestic abuse summit over concerns of its effectiveness.

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And last month Cllr Bell submitted a motion to full council calling for the Home Office to provide more funding to tackle domestic abuse in St Helens.

“I know St Helens, because I’ve lived here all my life,” Cllr Bell said.

“I’ve got seven generations of my family here, so St Helens I know inside and out.

“I grew up with domestic abuse. My dad was a violent alcoholic, so I know it from that perspective as well.

“And without sounding too controversial, domestic abuse in St Helens is a cultural and social issue that we have to tackle.”

Cllr Bell, 42, previously worked as a lecturer at St Helens College.

During her time there she saw some of the coercive control her students were being subjected to.

Cllr Bell said: “You listen to the way they describe their relationships, people monitoring your phone and running past your partner what you’re going to wear and what you’re not going to wear and what time you’re going to be back.

“It’s that ongoing ingrained cultural control.

“And it’s not just about men. It’s not just about women – it’s right across the board, and I think we’re only touching on the tip of it.”

Cllr Bell said another issue that we do not know the full extent of in St Helens is financial abuse, which is where a person exerts total control over their partner’s finances.

“We don’t really know how much of an issue that is, and the more we dig the more we’ll uncover,” Cllr Bell said.

“But I do think it’s a social issue that we’ve got to hit head on.”

Cllr Jeanie Bell, cabinet member for community safety

Merseyside Police recently revealed that it received 2,921 reports of domestic abuse in St Helens in 2018-19.

Out of that figure, 729 offences relate to cyber-related crimes.

Superintendent Tami Garvey-Jones, area commander for St Helens, told the St Helens People’s Board last month that a proportion of those will be related to stalking, harassment and domestic abuse.

Supt Garvey-Jones said: “People think it’s safe to harm people through text messages, emails, social media. We are seeing an increase.

“And that’s having an impact on our time and ability to police this hidden and complex thing, these crimes, because it’s changing the way people commit crime.

“And it’s also impacting on police and police visibility, because we’re taking statements, we’re scanning and analysing, submitting forensic evidence from laptops, mobile phones, social media.

“It takes us longer to search homes because we’re looking for small items or for technology.

“These are the wicked problems that lie behind cyber-crime and its impact on police visibility.”

Domestic abuse crimes in 2018-19 equated to 18 per cent of all crime in St Helens.

The most common form of domestic abuse known to police is violence without injury, followed closely by stalking and harassment.

Around a quarter (22 per cent) were alcohol related.

Superintendent Tami Garvey-Jones, area commander for St Helens

Cllr Bell said a common misconception is that domestic abuse is directly related to poverty and therefore happens more frequently in low-income housing.

She argues this masks over the abuse that occurs in more affluent areas.

Cllr Bell said: “It’s not only offensive to people living in low-income housing, but it also lets off the domestic abuse that’s happening in detached houses, that nobody hears because it’s in detached houses.

“And services aren’t involved so services don’t know it’s happening.

“And the kids are going to school well-presented and they’re looked after, and they’re attending hobbies at the weekend.

“You don’t know what’s going on behind those doors.”

Growing up Cllr Bell, 42, lived with her mother, father and three older sisters.

Both of her parents were nurses.

To the outside world her father was a well-liked and respected induvial, but the outside world did not know of his abuse inside his family home.

“By all accounts, my dad was everybody’s friend,” Cllr Bell said. “It was all, everybody loved him, he’s a great guy – he beat the crap out of us at home.

“So, you just do not know. It’s the same in that people assume alcohol and drug abuse is a problem only for houses of low income – it isn’t.

“And if we don’t say this can happen anywhere, to anyone, then we don’t identify how much of an issue it is.”

After a period of coming in and out of the family’s lives, Cllr Bell’s father finally left the family for good when she was around 18.

For much of her life Cllr Bell did not speak of the abuse she and her family suffered.

But as the years went on, Cllr Bell began to embrace her past.

Cllr Bell said: “As I got older it was kind of a sudden realisation that it wasn’t my fault.

“Therefore, by not speaking about it and not speaking out about it, I continued to allow myself to be a victim of that, as if it was some kind of shame.

“So, I have been quite open about it for a number of years now.”

Cllr Bell was 21 when her mum, Ann, died of kidney cancer aged 56.

“My mum was this incredible woman who found herself in a difficult circumstance and she did the best that she could,” Cllr Bell said.

“But she always said to me, and she drilled it in and drilled it in – do not let this happen to you.

“You do not need to have this in your life. Make sure that you’re working so you’re financially independent.

“Don’t rely on anybody for your housing, for your money, for your income.

“Always make sure you’ve got a back-up plan.

“So, actually, even though my mum was a victim of domestic abuse, she empowered me to make sure that going forward, I wouldn’t tolerate it.”

Despite losing contact with her father, for years Cllr Bell struggled to properly escape the clutches of his abuse.

Cllr Bell said she was only able to find closure after he died while living in Blackpool, when she was 35.

After being informed of his death, Cllr Bell ended up clearing out her father’s house and making his funeral arrangements.

“It was weird, but it was a relief. Even though he’d been out of my life,” Cllr Bell said.

“When you’ve been in that situation and you’ve suffered that level of abuse, the shadow never leaves you.

“And actually, all those years that he was out of my life, I was always looking over my shoulder in town. I was always catching out the corner of my eye when I was walking through Earlestown.

“Because I never knew if he was going to turn up again. I never knew.

“As horrible as it sounds, when I got that knock on the door and they said he’d passed away, it was almost a relief.

“Right, it’s finally over now, it’s done. I can just leave it.”

Cllr Bell said her personal experiences is impacting the work she is leading around domestic abuse.

The mum-of-three wants people to know they can break the cycle of abuse.

“I don’t want people to go through what I went through,” she said.

“But equally I want people to know that it is a cycle that can be broken,” she said.

“Just because that has been an experience in your life, it doesn’t mean that that experience has to be continually repeated or will be continually repeated.

“And it doesn’t mean that you are not in control.”

Earlier this year the People’s Board, which is made up of various agencies in the borough, said tackling domestic abuse would be one of its key priorities for the next three years.

This was announced in the days after the murder of 46-year-old mum-of-five Rachel Evans, who was stabbed more than 100 times in her Parr home by her partner, Carl Harrison.

Rachel Evans was murdered by her partner in her home in Parr

And while there were almost 3,000 incidents of domestic abuse reported in St Helens last year, Cllr Bell fears this is just the “tip of the iceberg”.

St Helens’ area commander, Supt Tami Garvey-Jones told the People’s Board last month this could be down to improved recording by the force.

She also said instances of coercive control, which has only recently been recognised as a crime, means the police are now recording twice for one domestic abuse incident.

In response to the domestic abuse figures, professor Sarah O’Brien, the council’s strategic director of people’s services and clinical accountable officer for St Helens CCG, said there is a “feeling” that some communities do not report domestic abuse.

For Cllr Bell the message is clear, if you think someone is a victim of domestic abuse – report it.

“If it’s happening, you have to report it, you’re not being a grass. You’re not going behind people’s backs,” Cllr Bell said.

“You are potentially saving somebody’s life.”

In June Cllr Bell pushed back a planned summit on domestic abuse due to concerns over its effectiveness.

While there was some opposition to the move at the time, Cllr Bell said the response has actually been well-received by the council’s partners.

Cllr Bell said: “It was actually the right thing to do because it’s sent a clear message that actually we’re not going to be holding summits where we pat each other on the back and say we’re doing a great job.

“We’re going to hold summits that launch pieces of work that are robust, that have outcomes and that have direction.”

As part of the refocus, the council has committed to working towards delivering a comprehensive, “whole council” approach to domestic abuse.

The current domestic abuse strategy was approved in February 2018 and was intended to run until 2023.

However, it is intended that the new strategy will replace this.

While it is recognised that a multi-agency response is required, there has also been warnings about the “unintended consequences” of strategic decisions.

Speaking to the People’s Board last month, St Helens Council’s chief executive Mike Palin pointed to a recent police operation that may have unintentionally resulted in a spike in domestic abuse.

Mike Palin, chief executive of St Helens Council

Mr Palin said: “On New Year’s Eve, there was a dedicated operation in St Helens town centre to discourage violent acts in the town centre.

“It achieved a positive result. And then you look at the stats a few weeks later and we had a spike of domestic abuse that night compared to previous years.

“In effect we may have displaced violence in the town centre back into the home on that night, by disrupting violence that would have gone on in that town centre.

“It has to be looked at in a system-based way because things we do have unintended consequences that often we’re not able to predict until the stats come back afterwards.”

At its last meeting, the People’s Board also agreed its response to a government consultation on proposed changes to domestic abuse services.

The consultation paper seeks views on the government’s proposals for a new approach to support victims of domestic abuse and their children in accommodation-based services in England.

This would place a statutory responsibility on the local authority.

Back in June Cllr Bell told the People’s Board she had “significant concerns” around the additional funding that will be required if the changes are made.

This is what led to her motion to write to the Homes Secretary, now confirmed as Priti Patel following Boris Johnson’s cabinet reshuffle, to demand more funding.

Whether this happens, with Brexit currently taking centre stage, is up for debate.

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Cllr Bell said: “It is a worry because Brexit is dominating everything.

“Brexit is an issue in St Helens, but is it as big of an issue as some of the issues around crime? Some of the issues around domestic abuse? Around Universal Credit?

“Is it impacting people’s day to day lives at the moment, more than that? I don’t think it is.”